I bought a can of Stanislaus Saporito Filetto di Pomodoro the other day, I guess mainly to experiment and force myself to stray from old habits. Right away I used some of the tomatoes (unprocessed) in a very simple pasta sauce. The sauce didn't amount to anything special, but I've never claimed to possess much knowledge about making pasta sauce.

Two days ago I made a couple NY style pizzas. For sauce I processed some of the tomato strips to a pulpy (not chunky) consistency. I added nothing to the tomatoes, nor did I cook or drain them. Verdict: The sauce tasted just about perfect, and the pizza was pretty amazing. (Having also used Polly-O mozzarella for the first time, the cheese impressed me, too.)

Within a few days I intend to use the tomato strips on a deep dish pizza. I expect this product to be almost perfect for deep dish, probably without even having to drain the tomatoes; just straight out of the can, without adding anything to it. I really don't understand why so many members have such a lovefest with 6 In 1s plus diced tomatoes for Malnati's clones. I've eaten at Malnati's and I've used those products, and the difference is night and day to me. I expect good results with the Saporito tomato strips because they are soft and fleshy (like Malnati's), not hard and chunky (like diced tomatoes).

I'll make an effort to post some pics after I make the deep dish pie(s).

Has anyone else used these tomatoes for anything? Or have you used 74•40 or 80•40 tomato filets? Anything to say about them?

I really don't understand why so many members have such a lovefest with 6 In 1s plus diced tomatoes for Malnati's clones.

Ryan,

I would say that the 6-in-1s are so popular because they can be purchased directly from Escalon, in small cans and at reasonable prices, or their counterparts (Classico) can be purchased, also at reasonable cost, at Wal-Mart. What is often forgotten is that most of our members are home pizza makers and they usually don't have access to Stanislaus tomato products or else they can't use entire #10 cans of their tomatoes. Malnati's at one time sold cans of tomatoes that presumably are used to make their own pizzas but recently stopped selling them. That means that our members who used those tomatoes will have to look for other sources.

I just made a couple deep dish pizzas using these tomatoes. I did not process or drain the tomatoes, nor did I add anything to them. Rather, I used them straight out of the can (with parmesan and a little oregano sprinkled on top of the pizza). Here's what I have to say about the tomatoes:

They did not make the pizza wet or soggy. The water content of these tomatoes is just about perfect for deep dish.

The strips of tomato are just about the perfect size for Malnati's-style deep dish, especially when compared to 6 IN 1 and similar products. "Random cut" might be a better description than "tomato strips." A few of the tomato pieces were bigger than I'd like, but that did not bother me at all.

The taste was not bad, but it wasn't quite as sweet as I'd like. The tomatoes tasted kinda bitter to me, but it may have just been my mood, considering I worked pretty hard to make the pizzas for myself and three other people. Also, I haven't made deep dish in well over a year, and this was only about the fifth time I've ever made deep dish. As a result, I may have been a little too focused on other things to make a good assessment of how everything tasted. I'll probably try again soon.

To sum it all up, these tomatoes are just about perfect for deep dish.

Because you don't have to drain the tomatoes or combine them with any other tomato products, it takes a lot less work to make deep dish with these tomatoes than it takes to make deep dish with the more commonly used tomato products on pizzamaking.com (such as diced tomatoes added to 6 IN 1). Also, I'd say these tomatoes taste better.

If I was going to open a deep dish pizzeria today, I would use these tomatoes for the sauce; I would not even consider using 6 IN 1 or diced tomatoes. Before making a long-term decision, though, I would also try every other similar product, from both Stanislaus and Escalon. Aside from my opinion that the 6 IN 1 mixture doesn't taste as good, it is also impractical to use the 6 IN 1 mixture for deep dish in a pizzeria setting because it costs a lot of money to have unwanted water shipped, especially when you can get more tomato product (instead of unwanted water) for the same price.

I took some pictures, which I'll try to post. (I need to borrow a computer to post pictures.) Also, even though this thread is about the tomatoes, rather than my pizza, I may post the dough formula and all the pizza details as well.

Ryan, my understanding is that, for the most part, the Stanislaus Saporito Filetto di Pomodoro are a tomato strip version of their Alta Cucina canned, whole plum tomatoes. The same tomatoes go into each product.

I have not been able to locally source the Filetto di Pomodoro and would like to try them. I am currently using Alta Cucinas for my sauce. The cans I have been buying over the last 3 months do not require anything but a little sea salt. I do drain the puree in the can away from the tomatoes and then squeeze the tomatoes in a colander to get rid of any loose, watery juice in the tomatoes before lightly pulsing with a stick blender, but other than that only a little sea salt is needed. The resultant sauce is very bright and fresh....the sauce is one of the first things people comment on liking.

I'd be eager to see if I could just use the Filetto di Pomodoro and just pulse that with the stick blender right out of the can. It would certainly save a lot of time!

As a side note, not every growing season is the same in a given region tomatoes are grown (hard rains around the time of picking are not ideal). While it would be difficult to "track" what the weather in a growing season is like in multiple regions/countries, I personally feel it would behoove every pizzamaker to occasionally do a blind taste test of several leading tomato producers once a year or so. In theory this would help the pizzamaker keep the best tasting product on top of their pizzas over time, regardless where the tomatoes actually come from.

So while I really like the Alta Cucinas, and am interested to try the Filetto di Pomodoro, I am not going to be "locked in" to any particular brand over the long term. And then there are those certain tomatoes in a can with no label -- Hi DMC

Thanks for the enthusiastic update on the Filetto di Pomodoro Ryan! --K

I intend to post some pics, Tom. My computer only runs on safe mode right now, though, so that makes things kinda difficult. I'm also a really crappy photographer. Are there any specific kinds of pics you'd like to see?

Not much to say about the dough formula. I like to keep things as simple as possible, so I omitted butter, which I had previously included in my deep dish dough. I mixed the dough by hand just until it came together, then put the dough in the fridge, and used it after about 24 hours (with the last couple hours at room temperature). I intended to brush some butter on the dough skin before applying the cheese, but I totally forgot. I'll probably omit olive oil in future batches, replacing it with more corn oil.

For each of the two 10" pizzas, I used (in this order):

11.7 oz of dough;

7 oz of Polly-O mozzarella;

Pepperoni by feel (on one pizza);

8.25 oz of peeled tomato strips (plus at least a few more ounces of tomatoes, which I added after realizing 8.25 oz wasn't enough);

Kraft parmesan;

A hint of dried oregano.

Quick thoughts about the portions:

Too much dough;

Not enough cheese (even though there was a relatively thick layer of cheese slices covering the entire surface of the skin);

For deep dish it seems easiest to just apply sauce until it looks right. However, I like to know the specific details of every aspect of the pizzas I make.

I'd be eager to see if I could just use the Filetto di Pomodoro and just pulse that with the stick blender right out of the can. It would certainly save a lot of time!

Am I correct in thinking you sell pizzas at a weekly market, baking the pizzas in two LBEs or something like that? If so, am I correct to assume your pizza is in between New York street style and elite? If so, I highly recommend trying to find some of these tomatoes and processing them how you indicated above. But I wonder, wouldn't you just be creating something similar to Tomato Magic, 7/11, and 6 IN 1?

I think your prep description would work perfectly for you. That's essentially what I did when I made the NY style pizzas the other day. And thanks largely to the sauce, at least one of the two pizzas was rather heavenly. In addition to the taste, the sauce was also the right consistency from the start. And it took a lot less work than would have been required with Alta Cucinas to create essentially the same end product. (I know I keep saying the same thing over and over, but it seems like most people don't realize how important it is to be efficient in every possible way, especially in a commercial setting, which I think is one of the biggest reasons why so many pizzerias fail.)

I intend to make both a deep dish and a NY style pizza tomorrow. So far, even though it seems these tomatoes may be ideal for deep dish, I like them better on the NY pizzas I made (pulsed in the processor). Hopefully I'll get the same results with tomorrow's pizza.

But I'm confused. If you are selling pizzas, even if it's only one day a week, I would assume you get your tomatoes from a foodservice distributor. Right? Which makes me wonder: In a big east-coast city like Baltimore, how could it not be possible to find a distributor that carries this stuff?

Well, if you're ever in Columbus, Ohio, stop in to Carfagna's on 161, just east of I-71. They carry a ton of different tomato products, including about 10 from Stanislaus.

The first pic appears to be one of yesterday's deep dish pizzas just out of the oven. It's a 10" pizza. I made a conscious effort not to pull the edges too far up the side of the pan, but I ended up not pulling them high enough.

The second pic is the same pizza after being removed from the pan. I probably used a little too much tomato on this pizza. You can see that the tomatoes went over the outer edge of the crust in at least one spot.

With these pics I'm just trying to use different perspectives to show the size and texture of the tomatoes. They may look kinda wet in the first pic, but I haven't ended up with any wet pizzas yet. Four more pics to go.

Wow Nice Pies !! @ Kelly , They can be used direct from the can no problem. I am a bit anal with the sauce and I still pick through quick to take the few large heads out and a few harder pieces. then through food mill for consistant sauce everytime, but yes same as Alta Cucina and as you say alot less work I discovered a very large pile of the filetto cans at Brooklyn coal fired pizza in ridgewood must have been sauce day and nothing else was around ? not Dumpster diver diving the cans were just placed outside its the back entrance to my optometrist. I had ask these guys a few ? once and they kinda snarled at me " I am not tell-in you my secrets ? " alrighty then John

I mixed by hand just until the dough came together, then I put the dough in a ziploc bag and into the fridge almost immediately. Removed the dough about 24 hours later and let it warm at room temperature for about an hour and a half.

Dough weighed about 10.5 oz (for 10");

8 oz of mozzarella;

Pepperoni on half of the pizza;

11 oz of peeled tomato strips;

Parmesan cheese;

Baked at 450 for 25 minutes.

Quick thoughts: All the ingredient weights (dough, cheese, sauce) were pretty ideal and pizza was very good. The tomatoes tasted good again, but I still feel like they'd be better if they were just a little sweeter. (More about that when I post about today's pizza.) Obviously adding sugar is an option; however, I'd prefer not to add sugar.

And here are some pictures from today's deep dish pizza. I don't think there is any need to explain any of them except pic #5.

Pic 5: I baked the pizza on the rack below the stone basically because the top heat in my oven ruins everything. The stone acted as a barrier to the oven's top heat, and I suppose it also radiated heat to the top of the pizza.

And here are the details about the NY style pizza pictured in this post and the next post.

100% All Trumps flour56.25% Water0.63% ADY1.34% Salt1.58% Canola oil

Since my KitchenAid is currently at the factory being repaired (FINALLY!), I mixed the 16 ounces of dough in a food processor, just long enough for the dough to become a cohesive mass. I guess you could say it was beyond the pick-up stage, but it was still very lumpy. In other words, undermixed, but undermixed on purpose. I let the dough rest for about half an hour before rounding it. After rounding the dough ball I placed it an inch or two from the end of a 14-inch-long piece of plastic wrap. I sprayed the top of the dough ball lightly with nonstick spray and folded the plastic wrap over the top of the dough ball, making sure the plastic wrap formed tightly around the dough ball. I immediately placed the dough ball in the refrigerator and left it there for about 24 hours.

I removed the dough ball from the fridge about an hour and a half before using it. After removing it from the fridge I placed it in a dough box (because it's much easier to remove the plastic wrap when the dough is cold, and because the dough box is a better place to store the dough when it doesn't need to be in the fridge).

If you look closely at the picture of the dough ball, you may be able to see that it looks slightly lumpy. However, it is not quite as lumpy in the pic as it was 24 hours earlier, when I mixed the dough. (This dough is more suited for a 48-hour ferment, but 24 hours works just fine.) I have found that undermixing the dough is a huge key to making good NY style pizza, as long as it's fermented for a long time in the refrigerator.

Dough weighed about 16 oz (for a 16" pizza on a 15-1/2" stone);

I did not weigh the sauce;

About 10.5 oz of cheese on the pizza, plus maybe another ounce on the cheese-only half of the pizza;

Bridgford pepperoni stick on the other half;

I did not time the bake and I have no idea what the temperature was (I estimate about 5 minutes at 550-600).

Quick thoughts: These tomatoes taste amazing when they are the consistency that I used for this pizza; much better than the whole strips I've used on my deep dish pizzas so far.

Pics: As the deep dish pizza was baking in the oven, I prepared a NY style pizza to bake in the grill out back. I know only one of these pics highlights the tomato product, but it seems wrong not to include the other pics.